My first scan and I need help

[fyrpuppy]

Attached is a copy of my first scan. It is a scan of a Fire mark that is made of cast iron. I have had this for about 20 years and found it in an antique store that had it listed as a lodge plaque. My problem is I had it hot glued to my sled and I used a tongue depressor to space the probe off of the sled so it never touched the sled. When you turn the image up on it's side there is all sorts of spikes. How do I get rid of the spikes. Thanks in advance for any help. Also for a little history this is the fire mark for Benjamin Franklins Fire Dept. The cast iron has a wood grain look to it , the original fire marks were wood and normally the items like the hands and numbers were cast iron. This one is all black with the hands and numbers being aged gold look.

firemark.ptn

[fwharris]

try "lowering" it when you import it into designer.

[fyrpuppy]

Thanks, I thought that might lower the detail on the top instead of the back. Would that be lowering the depth or height?

[fwharris]

I believe it does lower the height some. I compared yours to the one I lowered and it does not seem to make much difference. I am sure some of the pro's will jump in and explain it with more detail..

[bjbethke]

I made a MPC and it looks like a great PTN to me. Thanks for the PTN. great job.

[bjbethke]

You need a full one inch board to carve your PTN to the max depth and height

The PTN depth is.974 when I downloaded it.

[ChrisAlb]

Attached is a copy of my first scan. It is a scan of a Firemark that is made of cast iron. I have had tis for about 20 years and found it in an antique store that had it listed as a lodge plaque. My problem is I had it hot glued to my sled and I used a tongue depresser to space the probe of of the sled so it never touched the sled. When you turn the image up on it's side there is all sorts of spikes. How do I get rid of the spikes. Thanks in advance for any help. Also for a little history this is the firemark for Benjam Franklins Fire Dept.

firemark.ptn

Hi fyrpuppy,

When you import the pattern, click the "Floor Edges" check box. This forces the edges to a common height. The pictures below show you the before and after effects of doing this. Also, change the "Depth" of it to .375" Before saving it to you pattern library. I did and it looks great without having to carve it so deep. Of course you can change the depth in Designer as well but then you WILL loose some of the upper details.

Hope that helps.

Chris

[mtylerfl]

Hello fyrpuppy,

Chris is correct about "Floor Edges" - however, you would normally use the "Round Edges Tool" to bring the outside edges of the scan down to the Zero plane (the floor) in the Pattern Editor after importing your raw scan (mpw). The tool's name implies that it will perform some sort of a "round-over", but that is not the case...it's function is simply to bring any "incomplete" outside edges all the way down to "zero". (I've already suggested a name change for that particular tool that will better represent its true purpose.)

Also, when the pattern is brought onto a layout in Designer, use of the Depth and Height tools can be used in concert to find a good balance of pattern detail vs. a reduced carve depth. If the Depth is lowered, you can try raising the Height. This will often bring back some detail.

The June Tips & Tricks will have some tips about scanning (late in its release, since I've been out of town so much lately)...then a follow-up article in the July Tips & Tricks will cover the features and functions of the latest version of the Pattern Editor software. Both Tips & Tricks issues might come in handy for folks who already use the scanning probe and for those who will be getting one in the future!

[roughcut]

I have really been needing tips on scanning.It all seems so simple when you Pros explain it. Thank You.

[fyrpuppy]

Thanks guys I didn't know about the floor edges option, I really appreciate the help. Is there a way to assign an automatic cutpath to this or will I have to do a manual one. I have gotten patterns from you guys off of here so maybe now I can begin to contribute back.